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Armenia Start‑class High‑importance

Armenian genocide denial is within the scope of WikiProject Armenia, an attempt to improve and better organize information in articles related or pertaining to Armenia and Armenians. If you would like to contribute or collaborate, you could edit the article attached to this page or visit the project page for further information.ArmeniaWikipedia:WikiProject ArmeniaTemplate:WikiProject ArmeniaArmenian Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Turkey Start‑class High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Turkey, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Turkey and related topics on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.TurkeyWikipedia:WikiProject TurkeyTemplate:WikiProject TurkeyTurkey Start This article has been rated as Start-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments and look in the archives before commenting.

Archives

Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Grammar issues

Trying to get through this entry, I repeatedly came across ungrammatical sentences, perhaps written by non-native English speakers. Someone with a good command of the English language needs to go through this whole entry and clean it up. 75.42.222.134 (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2009 (UTC)Mark P

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was as no consensus to move at this time. I've delinked the move request and merge rfc. After reading the various discussions, I think both sides have valid points. PBS is right that having two articles, one on denial and another on recognition, is a content fork that is both unnecessary as well as renders each article incomplete. However, the other side is valid too. Having one article on the Armenian genocide and another labeled dispute does imply that the genocide itself is disputed (my understanding - mostly from lay knowledge and from reading the discussion - is that it is the recognition that is the focus of dispute not the genocide itself. I suggest that the merge rfc occur independently for the time being - it won't be resolved in a hurry - and that the discussion include a suitable title for a merged article (if there is consensus for a merge). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 16:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Denial of the Armenian Genocide → Armenian genocide dispute — I suggest that we follow the lead of the BBC and move this article to Armenian genocide dispute and merge into it the article called recognition of the Armenian Genocide PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move to "Armenian genocide dispute" and merge in "recognition of the Armenian Genocide"

To remove the POV fork, I suggest that we follow the lead of the BBC and move this article to Armenian genocide dispute and merge into it the article called recognition of the Armenian Genocide PBS (talk) 19:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

At the moment there are three articles. One which concentrates on the events themselves and is called the Armenian Genocide and two more articles called recognition of the Armenian Genocide (RAG) and the other was called denial of the Armenian Genocide (DAG). I my opinion the two article construct of recognition and denial are a clear example of a point of view (POV) fork:

A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Misplaced Pages, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies.

and this is a problem because the article names imply that there are only two positions—either the events took place and they were a genocide or they did not and no genocide took place. However there are shades of opinion that range between these two positions which means that either these in between views have to be repeated in both articles or they are marginalized in one or both articles.

For example the BBC article, mentioned in this article called "Q&A: Armenian genocide dispute", makes the point that "The UK, US and Israel are among those that use different terminology to describe the events." yet there is no mention of this in this article and the UK's position is mentioned in one sentence in the RAG article. In 2001 the BBC reported that the British government's position is "The Foreign Office accepts that the massacres took place, but insists that they do not qualify as genocide." This position does not deny that the events took place but it does deny that the events constituted a genocide because the intent to destroy a group requirement of the Genocide Convention has not been proven. The British Government may or may not be correct, but the current content forking of these two article makes it difficult to present all views in a WP:NPOV.

As this covers more than one process I am going to advertise it in several places. -- PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

See also Talk:Denial of the Armenian Genocide/Archive 2#RFC: Merge "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" into this article --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

To the closing administrator. Please look at the arguments carefully and decide the issue on policy and guidelines not by counting the number of opinions expressed here. --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The closing administrator must also look very carefully at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_1#Requested_move (in which it was proposed that the article title be changed from "Denial of the Armenian Genocide" to "Rejection of the Armenian Genocide") and Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_1#Second_requested_move (in which it was proposed that the article title be changed from "Denial of the Armenian Genocide" to "Denial of the Armenian Genocide Allegations").
The closing administrator should also consider the discussions at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_2#Reversal_by_Gazifikator, and at Talk:Denial_of_the_Armenian_Genocide/Archive_2#Moving.2C_redirecting_and_cut-and-pasting.... Those two discussions arose as a result of PBS ignoring policy and guidelines and unilaterally moving the article title to "Armenian genocide dispute". 93.97.143.19 (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

93.97.143.19 do you edit under any login id? Which policies and guidelines do you think were were breached. If you are in favour of using the policies and guidelines, does that mean you are in favour of this move? --PBS (talk) 07:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. --PBS (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I know of at least one regular contributor to this article who is temporarily blocked. Should we suspend the RfC until they return? --Goodmorningworld (talk) 10:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Others may be on holiday, etc, etc. Who is the regular contributor, and how long have they been blocked for? --PBS (talk) 10:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Meowy, 1 month.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 12:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that the closing admin read Talk:Denial of the Armenian Genocide/Archive 2#RFC: Merge "recognition of the Armenian Genocide" into this article as Meowy contributed significantly to the last debate so his/her points of view can be considered. -- PBS (talk) 15:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support Definitely a reasonable idea, but a heck of a deal to accomplish. I suggest you guys reserve a special place for your coffeemakers and cans of RedBull. (People who are temporarily blocked must've been blocked for some reason (no?) and being on vacation is an excuse similar to "I ran out of RedBull"...) Seb az86556 (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Is this some sort of joke? There is no "dispute" about the Armenian Genocide (certainly none among any serious historians) asides from the imaginary one the Republic of Turkey and its cohorts have created. Just because Turkey is still desperately attempting to quash any wider efforts of recognition doesn't mean we have to kowtow their political line as well. This is a completely unacceptable measure to even be proposed and its ill-faith nomination and unabashedly POV name is another low by PBS. Almost 100 years have passed and it's a total copout to pretend that the jury is still out after all this time. The word asinine hardly begins to describes the nature of this proposal.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

What you say may be true, but a reliable source uses this title and there is no getting away from the fact that we have Misplaced Pages:Content forking policy that says "A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Misplaced Pages, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." -- PBS (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The above is a good point to make. Come to think of it, I don't think there's an article "Holocaust dispute"... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 00:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

We do not have an article about "recognition of the Holocaust" we only have Holocaust denial. The article Criticism of Holocaust denial, it could be argued should be wound back into the main article but as it is a subsidiary article of Holocaust denial#Examination of claims (see Wikiepdia:summary article) and the size of the two articles make that difficult. It could also be argued that Denial of the Armenian Genocide and Recognition of the Armenian Genocide are subsidiary articles of Armenian Genocide, but although they are they could also exist as one article because the main article is structured differently. But it could be also be argued that the current structure of the Armenian Genocide article does not follow the advise in the pro and con lists guideline, placing the two article into one would allow this to be done. If we were to follow the advise of the Wikiepdia:summary article then this article (denial) ought to be titled "Republic of Turkey and the Armenian Genocide" --PBS (talk) 09:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm tired of these denialist-motivated 'merges'. It is not the first time we're closing a discussion on the same topic. How many times we need to discuss it? Andranikpasha (talk) 14:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support This material should all be in the same place. For me, there is no "dispute" but there is a controversy. To me, "dispute" implies that there is a valid denial side, which I don't think exists, but controversy is the activity of those who deny the genocide, whether they are right, or not. Please put all this in the same place. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong, strong, strong Oppose Two points: If an editor suggested changing Holocaust to Holocaust dispute they would be promptly warned and if they persisted, blocked. I feel the same way about those other lesser known genocides. Second point: I can't stand how editors attempt to water down article names to somehow lesson the horrors of the massacres. Several CIA and US military articles come immediately to mind: Torture manuals, the No Gun Ri Korean war incident, and American terrorism. It is like a minor form of holocaust denial when editors do this, in this case, it is a major one. Ikip (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. "denial of the Armenian Genocide" is an appropriate title for the same reason that "Holocaust denial" is, to summarise: a "point of view" is something based on fact. The Armenian Genocide is considered a fact by almost all of academia; claiming that it never happened is therefore essentially bullshit, and if not bullshit then incredibly unlikely bullshit. We don't include the "the genocide never happened" point of view in our thinking when picking appropriate titles for the same reason that we don't consider the theory that the missing Armenians actually decided to form a human peace-chain around the pacific ocean and were gobbled by sharks; it's bullshit. Ironholds (talk) 09:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

There is another position held by the British Government which has held the position since n May 24, 1915, that the events that happened were crimes against humanity. They still hold that position, because in the opinion of successive British governments, the evidence is not sufficiently unequivocal to persuade them that these events should be characterised as genocide under the 1948 UN convention on genocide. This contrasts with the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) which considers "the mass murder of over a million Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide." Since the IAGS there has been considerable advance in the legal understanding of what a genocide is, and an important part of that is the intent of the perpetrators (see the Bosnian Genocide article for details of these developments. Now it may be that there is enough evidence to conclude that it was a genocide, and that successive British Governments are wrong, but it is not up to us to make that judgment call it is up to us to present the information and all significant points of view in a non biased way. From what you say aboveIronholds, you agree with the IAGS and not with the point of view of the British Government, but can you not see that by having two similar articles with polarized names it is not possible to present the information by comparing and contrast the information (as I have done in this paragraph in a NPOV way), unless the two articles duplicate much of the same information. What we have ended up with are two Wikinfo forked POV articles not one Misplaced Pages NPOV article. --PBS (talk) 18:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Or, what is more likely, the British government doesn't wish to damage their relations with the Republic of Turkey and instead employs the canard of "insufficient evidence" as an excuse to preserve its economic and military ties, and hence British interests, with it. A simple look at the Armenian Genocide page and its 150 or so citations demolishes the above argument. Perhaps the most damning evidence we can introduce is David Lloyd George's own comments: "It was the actions of the British government that led...worst of all, the Holocaust of 1915. Yet the British Government has failed, and still is failing in addressing their role in these wrongs." Thankfully, historians and scholars have absolutely no obligation toe the line set by politicians, whether they're British MPs, the Prime Minister, or the President of the United States.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 23:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Your arguments may well be valid, and I am sure that reliable sources can be found to substantiate such views, but the current structure of having two separate articles, inhibits such points of view being presented in a NOV way. -- PBS (talk) 10:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• Note. I do not have a strong opinion on this either way. However, I do not perceive the proposal by PBS to be motivated by a denialist agenda. Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per MarshallBagramyan. Let's call things the way they are. A genocide occurred and the party responsible denies it happened. The only controversy is this. - Fedayee (talk) 04:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I notice that your edit history entry for this opinion is "vote" this is not a vote. It is your opinion that a genocide took place and that "the party responsible denies it happened" yet the party responsible no longer exists. Further the British government was not a party to the events (quite the opposite), yet they claim it was not a genocide but a crime against humanity. Do you have any comments to make on the Misplaced Pages policy issue of POV forks and these two articles? --PBS (talk) 10:06, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this the third or fourth time Philip has attempted to pull this off? TA-ME (talk) 11:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

No. --PBS (talk) 13:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You should take a look at what is considered a reliable source. Political sources are plainly included and it is advised better sources should be used. UK has billions of dollars worth of military contracts with the republic of Turkey. So the British government is more than a party in this case. - Fedayee (talk) 22:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

If all that is true, and I am not saying that it is not, then isn't the current structure which is against Misplaced Pages policy (Misplaced Pages:Content forking) hindering the development of an article that allows a balanced article with all POVs to be presented? --PBS (talk) 08:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support - Misplaced Pages strives for a neutral point of view, no matter how much we may agree or disagree with the viewpoint. The only reason I would not recommend the same for Holocaust denial is that it, well, is the common term for it. Also, as a side note, I have seen no arguments against the move other than "it happened so we should keep it here" - which is precisely the wrong argument, given the nature of the controversy. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
• oppose - The only reason anyone would have for merging these pages is for denialists to group everything together to lessen any difference. I think it is important for quick navigation and clear points of view relating to what you are looking for to be available. But if we lump it all in it becomes harder to find information, and even harder to find the information you are looking for. (Echos Oki) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Echos Oki (talk • contribs) 03:16, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

That is the Wikinfo way, it is not Misplaced Pages way. The NPOV policy states in section "Article naming:

Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view (for example, renaming "Criticisms of drugs" to "Societal views on drugs"). Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing.

The problems with the current structure does not allow articles like this one by Associated Press "Obama Brands Armenian Killings 'Great Atrocities'" (published by ABC April 24, 2009) or this one by Ron Synovitz "Pitfalls Remain As Turkey, Armenia Move Toward Reconciliation" (Radio Free Europe, September 1, 2009)into either of the two articles, which if there was one article would be much easier. -- PBS (talk) 10:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

A quote from page 5 of a "press release by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign of the Republic of Armenia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey" 31 August 2009:

the sub-commission on the historical dimension to implement a dialogue with the aim to restore mutual confidence between the two nations, including an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations, in which Armenian , Turkish as well as Swiss and other international experts shall take part.

Here is a follow up article on this with the text of the September 1 initiative "Turkey, Armenia to launch talks on diplomatic ties" , Today's Zaman, Sepember 1 2009. This is again an example of how having two different articles that are a POV fork, it is difficult to structure them in such a way that developments like this are reported and given their proper weight. -- PBS (talk) 10:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC) --PBS (talk) 10:53, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support. I agree that this article is a fork, and its title is not in line with NPOV. The issue can be covered in the main article. Grandmaster 05:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. what's not neutral here? Just compare the usage of 'denial' vs 'despute' in academic publications. It is 62 vs 5 ( 'voices' from Turkey). Gazifikator (talk) 06:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support the merge per proposer. And can we please leave out the ad hominem attacks, such as the suggestion that the proposal is denialist-motivated? I see no validity in the arguments for having a content fork here.  --Lambiam 20:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

new suggestion a trimmed version of the "recognition" article should be merged into this one, as its basically a list of countries that have recognized it. alternately, the recognition page could be summarized and linked to as a space saver, instead of just a see also ... on second thought, wow, this article is long - definitely a short summary and link to 'recognition' article. untwirl(talk) 07:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Mainstream opinion is firmly that the genocide happened, and the dispute is only carried onwards due to ideological motivations. Thus, the term "denial" is precise and correct, as evidenced by its common usage in both academic and popular publications. Ray 13:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Under no circumstances should we disguise politically motivated denial as a legitimate historical debate. I won't allege bad faith, but I will say that this merger is a very, very bad idea. Lampman (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Support The heading "denial" is stronly biased, pre-supposes that the subject of the very dispute is moot. If there is no dispute, why is there one? I say reduce the number of soap boxes!--Murat (talk) 03:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Lampman. This is becoming ridiculous; Misplaced Pages is not beholden to the policies of governments and the media. Academics consistently use the word "denial" to describe the Turkish government's attempts to cover up history. This is hardly a "soap box". We've already voted on this (I'm unsure if PBS has raised this issue in the past) before. Would anyone support an article on Holocaust dispute just because a fringe minority doubt its historical veracity? We should be very careful to not legitimize the Turkish denialist position, which is precisely what PBS's proposal will do if passed. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If the Governments of the two largest English speaking governments refused to recognise the Holocaust as a genocide, then your comparison would have some validity. With the current structure we can not easily discuss issues as raised in recent articles such as this and -- PBS (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey, is it not better to leave other users to discuss and to not press the same pov to everyone? Your proposal is quite weak, and two largest English speaking governments have completely no relations with it. Gazifikator (talk) 12:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• Support The tone of this article is biased. FallenMorgan (talk) 19:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Lampman. American (neutral), German (allied to Turkey) and other contemporary accounts, as well as research since, confirm the events occurred, and that disputing this is indeed 'denial'. --Hayaman 11:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayaman (talk • contribs)

• See my comment above to Ironholds's opinon -- PBS (talk) 10:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Everything that should be said has already been said, and has been said several times. This is just a continuing example of PBS's inability to take "no" for an answer. Meowy 03:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

  Meowy, please note that rather more than just PBS have expressed support for merging the two articles! Rather than just attacking another editors opinion, why not address the issues raised, that the two articles are point of view (POV) fork? -- PBS (talk) 10:31, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

  I'd like to agree with Meowy, and express my views on this too. Sorry but there is a great part of demagogy in this repeated nomination, and I have the feeling that it is influenced by denialist view of Turkish government, nothing more... Gazifikator (talk) 11:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Why are there continuing votes anyway? This particular issue has been settled for now. We are not voting on a new proposal. The PBS "move this article to Armenian genocide dispute and merge into it the article called recognition of the Armenian Genocide" proposal was made on the 5th september, and ended with a "no consensus to move" result on the 15th September. I am removing the "mergeto" tag from the article because it refers to a proposal that was made, that has been discussed, and that was rejected. PBS reinserted the tag on the 25th September, incorrectly claiming that "The merge discussion is still open with no decision made". The merge discussion is actually closed, and the decision was "no consensus to move". Meowy 23:46, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you are confused. This was never a vote it is a discussion on how best to comply with Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. To date you have not suggested any solution to this problem. Further from the comment above you seemed to have miss the comment by RegentsPark when he closed the requested move on 15 September 2009 here it is in full:

The result of the was as no consensus to move at this time. I've delinked the move request and merge rfc. After reading the various discussions, I think both sides have valid points. PBS is right that having two articles, one on denial and another on recognition, is a content fork that is both unnecessary as well as renders each article incomplete. However, the other side is valid too. Having one article on the Armenian genocide and another labeled dispute does imply that the genocide itself is disputed (my understanding - mostly from lay knowledge and from reading the discussion - is that it is the recognition that is the focus of dispute not the genocide itself. I suggest that the merge rfc occur independently for the time being - it won't be resolved in a hurry - and that the discussion include a suitable title for a merged article (if there is consensus for a merge).

There is absolutly no reason why it should not stay open until a consensus is reached. Do you have any constructive suggestions on how we can come to a consensus? -- PBS (talk) 18:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Your repeated and neverending attempts to turn this article into what it is not, indicates you are not interested in consensus. Your edits have all but ruined the actual article. The most constructive route is to oppose whatever you propose. Meowy 20:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I have worked with PBS on the Greek genocide article and while he can be tenacious at times he is not as some users here have malliciously argued a denialist or partial to either side in this dispute. He has worked dilligently to bring said article to a consensus form and I believe that he will do so here as well. It goes without saying that "opposing what he proposes" for that reason alone is not in the least bit constructive. I will read the above cited discussions carefully before taking a position on the matter however.--Anothroskon (talk) 18:06, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The issue of recognition versus denial

At the core of this article lies the Armenian thesis that the Denial of the Armenian Genocide (which I also dispute the title, because it is itself is biased towards Armenian thesis) is a policy of the Turkish and Azeri goverments with no support from historians, and scholars. Turkey was not a colonised country, thus all her archives were written in Ottoman Turkish. A scholar being an expert on genocide can not be accepted as an authority without being specialised in Turkish history. Do not forget; those who claim it was genocide should find that evidence in the Ottoman archives, no where else. You can prove the cruelty even inhumanity by showing photographs, witnesses and other resources, however the systematic killings to exterminate a nation requires a proof of such order. My point is this article is biased because it totally neglects of the opinions of the historians against the general public opinion that A.G. is a fact, and indisputable. Even talking about scholars who thinks it happened should be in this article, yet alone interestingly even the historian who do not accept it as a genocide are not cited at the core of the article at the beginning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.98.30 (talk) 08:11, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

My other point is, logically speaking, if one version of the article suggests there are 21 countries recognising the A.G., it should be added to this article that (195-21=) 174 countries are not recognising it as a genocide, including British government who were the super power of those times.

Hope this adds value to this article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.98.30 (talk) 08:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

No it won't. First of all, any advantages Turkish scholars may have in terms of proximity to the sources is greatly outweighed by the fact that there is no freedom of speech in the country, as expressed in Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which makes it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions.

Secondly, we never have, and never will allow politicians to dictate content on Misplaced Pages. WP:RS clearly defines reliable sources as academic sources, not political statements. The genocide denial of the British and other governments is politically motivated, and only differs from that of the Turkish government in degrees. Academically speaking, denial of the Armenian Genocide falls into the same category as denial of evolution, global warming or The Holocaust: while there may be dissenters within the academic community, these are not significant enough to constitute a challenge to the ruling consensus.

Lastly I would like to say– while trying hard not to accuse anyone of bad faith– that those who claim that "both sides have valid points" in this debate are simply naive, and don't quite understand what's at stake here. Lampman (talk) 17:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I had a hard time understanding the relevance of freedom of press in Turkey and the Ottoman archives. For decades, all we heard was that archives should be opened and there we were to find the irrefutable evidence of intent and plan of genocide. Well.. they still have not found it. Ironically Turkey is the only place where this topic can be actually discussed and debated freely. Try discussing this in Armenia! Yes, there are laws in Turkey against insulting symbols of religion and national pride. Many countries have them. Yes, ultra nationalists try to exploit it. Shame on them. At the end though we are left with the fact that there is nothing in the official recorded history that supports any of the genocide claims pushed on the world public for decades. Well, truth is the best cure, is it not? You bet there is a dispute. One can not deny something that is not.--Murat (talk) 04:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not have time to make an undo fight with people here. If the Armenian government itself accepts to establish a commission to investigate the 1915 events, you should accept that there is some dispute instead of a mere denial. Secondly, if there are 20 or so countries calling it a genocide, it should be noted in the article that 174 other countries do not choose to do so; not only Azerbaijan. Otherwise, this is propaganda and it sounds like these two countries oppose to use the genocide because they are guilty. I can name at least my country, UK that doesn't use the term genocide to call the events. Thirdly, the same POV is neglecting the fact that it is not only Turkish government that deny ? AG, but there are historians who strongly oppose to call it genocide. It would be enough to read the discussion pages and how the concerns of supposedly Turkish people's opinions and references are ignored. I strongly urge my Turkish friends to form a team of people to correct this one-sided propaganda in wiki. Lastly, The genocide scholars are generally not historians, many have backgrounds in international law. European Council report (recognition) is signed by a certain number of people, etc. There are so many flaws in the entire document.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.98.30 (talk) 15:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The term "Mets Yeghern"

This section on the article doesn't really have a place in it. As the article concerns the "denial" of the "Armenian Genocide" a section that doesn't have anything to do with "denial" is redundant. It can be moved to the "Armenian Genocide" article. Any thoughts? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 04:57, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• Start-Class Armenian articles
• High-importance Armenian articles
• WikiProject Armenia articles
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• All WikiProject Turkey pages
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